


Here in Reality

by miss_nettles_wife



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: AU, Gen, Homelessness, Underage Drinking, blood mention, evil character has an eye patch, opposites au, very 90s much wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 21:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_nettles_wife/pseuds/miss_nettles_wife
Summary: Janet goes to see Dash. Marshall hatches a plan.





	Here in Reality

**Author's Note:**

> just a little au ive been working on....idk let me know what you think. It's a pretty basic back to front au but i like it! Heavy exposition warning btw. also, yes. janet did nickname herself J.D.

Riding a bike in an evening gown is really hard, J.D thought as she pulled away from her parents house. They were fighting again, louder than any other couple in the neighborhood. She could hear their shouting even as she stormed out of the front door, not even bothering to grab her coat as she left. She just barely managed to grab her purse before her father could grab her wrist and pull her into the argument too.

She managed to escape just as the ‘Kat would still be here’ started. It had been a miserable fucking night before that, and it did not seem to be in the business of picking up. She whizzed though her neighborhood, kicking her high heeled shoes off as she did so. She didn’t care much where they landed or who they hit. She’d rather ride barefoot anyway.

As she took off, she passed the Holmes house, Marshall, that fucking weirdo, was out the front with Simon. She pulled the bike to a stop on his footpath. In the house, Mister and Mrs Holmes are slowly cleaning up the remnants of Marshall’s sweet sixteen. They look in love, like they want to be together. J.D would kill to have that sort of family.  
“What’re you weirdos doing?” She asked, curiously. Marshall turned to look at her. Because he only had one eye, he had to turn all the way around. She gets a sick sense of satisfaction by making his life slightly more difficult where she can. The socket where his eye used to be is exposed, but she was sure he’d been wearing the patch earlier. The left side of his face was bloodied with what looked like runes carved into his skin.  
“I’m busy.” He replied.  
“What’s your fuckin’ damage?” She asked, fishing around in her purse for her Walkman. “Did Dash poke out your other eye too?“

”What’s you-We get it, J.D, you saw Heathers and liked it.” Marshall said, looking back at his massive book.

  
“That’s the best you got?” She asked, deliberately poking the bear to get a reaction.  Marshall grunted. Simon played with his tie, before leaning up and whispering to Marshall who scoffed and shooed him away. Mostly, J.D felt bad for Simon. He’d been such a nice kid before Marshall showed up.

Eerie Indiana is a dangerous place, and Marshall Teller is the most dangerous thing here. If he was always evil, or if he became evil after arriving, J.D didn’t know. What she does know, is that Marshall is the epicenter of weirdness for the whole town. If something was going on, Marshall was guaranteed to be there, trying to exploit it. Or causing it. For the most part, he didn’t seem like he was inspired by chaos or a general evil, mostly money and power. Which on some level she could understand. The kid lost both his parents and sister and was uprooted to this shitty little town to live with adoptive parents he didn’t even ask for. On the other hand, she would literally kill to have parents who chose her, who wanted her.

“I am not going to play this game right now, J.D.”

“What? Not even gonna try and kill me?”

“Go hang out with your boyfriend, I’m busy!” He declared, before turning away from her. Realizing that she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him, J.D fished her Walkman out of her purse and put on her headphones. It was a new model, the only birthday gift she’d gotten this year, as a group gift from her friends. It was small enough that she could clip it onto the spaghetti strap of her ugly blue evening dress and it didn’t threaten to accidentally flash all of Eerie Indiana.

 Jewel came blasting through the headphones.  That was the tape that they got her with the machine. She had others, mostly tracks recorded off the radio, in a box under her bed, but she liked Jewel. Liked folk music in general. It was to her taste.

She rode down the center of town, Foolish Games blasting through her headphones. Down the middle of the road watching as the leaves were stirred from their slumber by her bike. The light is still on in the World of Stuff, Mr Radford is cleaning glasses. She tried to avoid him when she could. Unlike Mayor Chisel, he always seemed to be more than a little intimidating, while the C-Man was just lame enough to escape being a threat.  And the fact that Radford always wore costumes was just weird.

She rode on, past more houses and the cemetery right to the very edge of town. She abandoned her bike in the dirt and straightened out her skirt as she padded barefoot across the rotting wood of the old Kubrick Mill. The still water is full of mosquitos but she hadn’t been much concerned with bug spray when she left home.

The wood was wet and disgusting under her feet as she made her way across the landing. The mill is silent and unused. Marked by signs and warnings, she ignores them, and hopped the fence. When she came down on the other side, she was made aware, very suddenly of a tearing noise. Glancing down, she noticed that her dress was torn right up the left side. Sighing grimly she continued her barefoot trudge up to the door.

She swung the door open enough to slide though, and closed it behind her. She walked through the space, and behind her, a chair rocketed up towards the ceiling, and a very sleepy sounding ghost did his best to scare her. She scoffed in reply.  
“Cut it out, Dash. ‘S just me.” Dash emerged from the doorway he was hiding behind, collar on his heavy green jacket pulled all the way up to his chin.  
“J.D?”  
“’s me.” She said, unclipping her Walkman and taking off her headphones.  
“How was the party?”  
 “Dull.” She said, falling on top of his sleeping bag, “Marshall picked as many fights as he could, yelled at his parents and took off with Simon halfway through.” Dash slid down next to her, and drew his feet up to his body.   
“Let me guess, he still wants us dead?”  
“Well, he wants you dead.”  
“Same as usual, then?” J.D nodded. “Great.” Dash said, sarcastically. After a moment, he grabbed his blanket from where it had fallen on the ground in his desperate dash to scare away his presumed intruder. He offered it to her. J.D hadn’t realized, but her arms were laced with goose bumps. Now she wasn’t fired up or exercising, she was cold. She accepted it and tugged it around her shoulders.  
“That freak is up to something.” She grumbled.  
“Maybe he’ll send us to another dimension again?” Dash said, “And we can take a well earned vacation.” Well, fighting the forces of weirdness were a very tiring and stressful job. A vacation would be good. Time away from her parents. Even better: alone with Dash. The last time Marshall had tried sending her to another dimension, she’d ended up in some version of Eerie where Marshall was Mitchell and was like…Actually super nice and helped her get home without trouble.

Dash leant against the wall and produced a hip flask from one of the many pockets of his coat.  
“Your hair came out good.” J.D had cut her hair into a short bob recently to provoke her mother, and dyed it blonde to anger her father.  
“Thanks. So did yours.” Dash scoffed, but in good humor and took a long swig from his flask.  
“You want some?” She took the flask and scoffed a mouthful. Gross. She passed it back to him. See, this was why she liked Dash. Unlike most of the people in Eerie, he didn’t expect anything in return. Not that J.D had much to give him anyway.

Dash took another swing. “Are they fighting?”  
“I left when Mom broke out the ‘Kat would still be here ifs.’”  
“What was she like, Kat?”  
“I don’t really remember her.”  
“Oh.” J.D snuggled up close to him, and put her head on his arm. Dash put one arm around her. “It’s not very…Romantic, but it’s all I got. Apparently we were best friends.”  
“Were?”  
“Well your my best friend now.”  
“I’m flattered.” Dash said, pulling her closer. “J.D…” He said, moving and knocking the panel at the front of her hair dyed black away from her face. “I just want-“ He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

Outside, the earth shook, and the force pushed them apart and cracked the floorboards. Dash jumped to his feet, followed by J.D. They looked at each other, and then both broke into a sprint out of the building. It's cold, and Janet abandoned the blanket, purse and walkman inside the mill. There is a massive crack running right through the earth in front of them, only getting bigger as it rushed towards the lake. They both made it onto land in time. Dash looked at her.  
"You okay?"  
"Yeah, yeah. Are you?" He nodded, and grabbed her hand. Both of them broke into a sprint. They chose to go on foot rather than bother with J.D’s bike. The tear in her dress made running a little easier, but it was painful on bare feet. Still wearing his boots, Dash had it a little easier. They ran through town, bumping into Devon Wilde.  
“J.D, Dash!” He exclaimed, joining them on their wild sprint through town. She didn’t need to tell him where they were going.  
“Devon!” She shouted back, “Is everyone okay?”  
 “I think so.” He said, before looking up to see a swirling green vortex right above the Holmes house. Oh, Marshall, what have you done now? 

Or at least, where the Teller house should be. So taken aback by the massive stone castle that had taken up her neighborhood she was, that she collided directly into the back of Dash when he skidded to a sudden halt.  
“What the Hell is going on?!” She demanded, before looking over Dash’s shoulder. Marshall was standing out the front of his castle, missing eye glowing green, and the dozens of markings on the left side of his face she’s noticed earlier glowing the same colour. Behind him, Simon was clutching the book close to his chest.  
“I think we’re about to find out.” Devon said, softly.


End file.
